John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is a wild ride, often literally. In a closed-door preview at Gamescom, in which I got to play the upcoming co-op shooter with three other people for an hour, I got run over by a truck, hauled off by a hulking monster, and driven around a monster-infested map while shooting at our pursuers. We barely survived the swarms of zombies converging at our position in the final moments of the level, and the sweet victory left me eager to play more.
Toxic Commando is meant to embody the over-the-top feel of late ‘80s and early ‘90s action movies, and developer Saber Interactive worked with Carpenter, the legendary director of They Live, Escape from New York, and The Thing, on the game’s story. It’s set in a near future where an experiment meant to harness the power of the Earth’s core unleashes an eldritch entity known as the Sludge God. You play a group of mercenaries who have to save the planet from oozing undead monsters with a wide variety of weaponry.
“We can’t license particular movies, but there is some flare, some Easter eggs, some fun and we just feel it fits in that world that he’s so famous for and has that vibe,” Saber Interactive chief creative officer Tim Willits told me in an interview at Gamescom.
Unfortunately I couldn’t hear the music written by Carpenter in my playthrough because my headphones were only playing audio from my fellow players. But the vibes were certainly great. The large map was filled with pits of corrosive ooze and glowing sludge tentacles that whipped out at the unwary. There were hordes of zombies perfect for incinerating with grenades and nasty spiked beasts that resembled Superman’s foe Doomsday that will grab a player character and run away with them.
Willits said he enjoyed how Toxic Commando gave Saber more creative liberty with its creature design than a licensed title would. “In World War Z we’re limited by human zombies and in Space Marine we’re limited by tyranids. Here, we’re limited by our imagination. We have crazy ass shit running around.”
Saber learned from both games how to handle swarms, which is evident in Toxic Commando: The game keeps the pressure up with massive hordes of undead that need to be dispatched with Molotov cocktails, railguns, turrets, and other heavy weaponry you come across. Our group was always hunting for spare parts we could use to unlock supply crates packed with ammo, guns, grenades, and healing items that are randomly generated when you open them.
We also had to make smart use of our special abilities. I played the game’s tank class, with a power I could periodically use to reduce damage done to everyone nearby. Our healer had a similar ability that granted temporary hit points in a burst, emphasizing the importance of sticking together. Willits said each of the classes have deep upgrade trees based on the systems they used in World War Z and Space Marine.
Toxic Commando will launch with nine maps, each of which are so big that they’re best traversed with vehicles. My favorite part of the demo was driving a truck past hordes of zombies chasing us while my party shot at them, pulling right into the next camp where everyone piled out to do some real damage. Toxic Commando also has an ambulance that offers healing while you ride, a police car that will fill you up with ammo, and a tank-like truck Willits called the “apocalypse vehicle” equipped with a winch we used to pull open a door and get at more gear.
Vehicles are also dangerous, though: I got incapacitated when a fellow player ran me over. But once I got in, I was able to switch around seats to get a better vantage point as I fired on undead. Willits said the vehicle development process started with just porting in cars from Saber’s driving sim SnowRunner and then changing the controls to make them more accessible.
I found all the game’s controls intuitive and swapping between the many weapons was highly satisfying, leaving me eager to try more along with experimenting with other classes. Willits says the levels will have a wide variety of objectives like protecting a huge vehicle or trapping bad guys by setting up barriers. Difficulty can be ramped up between story mode and nightmare (the highest difficulty), and while I loved sitting down with a group of four people, Willits recommends taking some time to play solo or with at least one AI companion.
“I always like to have one AI because that AI will revive me because my gamer buddies will not,” he said. “I actually have a lot of fun playing by myself. I can do some more exploring. I can really get into the world and I can really digest the story more.”
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando will be released in 2026 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
